Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s presidential transition team took issue with CIA assessments that said Russia had attempted to assist Mr Trump during the November election by releasing hacked emails harmful to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

In a statement, the transition team said the officials making the assessment were “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”.

And spokesman Sean Spicer said there were “people within these agencies who are upset with the outcome of the election”.

Image copyrightAPImage captionMr Trump is due to take over on 20 January